japan running news

The performance of the 2nd day of Japan's 110th National Track and Field Championships came c/o the latest monster to come out of Kyoto's Rakunan H.S. , 400 m hurdler Taiju Goto . In the opening round heats Goto, who turned 17 last month, closed hard to win his heat in 48.31, a PB by nearly a second and the fastest-ever U18 time anywhere in the world. And at only 0.42 off the senior NR held by the great Dai Tamesue , there's a lot of optimism for more in the final and the rest of the season. Another great performance came in the men's 200 m heats, where Soshi Mizukubo moved up to all-time #2 on the Japanese lists with a 20.07 (+0.5) PB to win Heat 3, 0.04 off another antique NR held by another legend, Shingo Suetsugu . By comparison the 100 m seemed pretty tame, with veteran Shuhei Tada scoring his first national title in 5 years in only 10.17 (+0.1) in what seems like an off-year for the event in Japan. After leading the women's 200 m heats in 23.01 (+0.1) Abiga...

4 meet records fell on the second day of the 2025 National Sports Festival in Shiga. In the junior men's pole vault , Naoya Inoue (Anan Hikari H.S.) was the only one to go higher than 4.80 m, and massively so. Inoue cleared 5.32 m on his 3rd attempt, setting a new MR and beating his closest competition by 52 cm. 800 m NR holders Rin Kubo (Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S.) and Ko Ochiai (Komazawa Univ.) duly took the 800 m wins here in MR time. Kubo won the junior women's race by over 3 seconds in 2:01.72, with Ochiai winning the senior men's race in 1:45.20. The men's race was actually decently competitive, with Mikuto Kaneko (Arcyell) and Hiroki Minamoto (NTN) going 1:46.25 and 1:46.47, and the top 4 all going under the old MR. Ochiai's success while still a teenager seems to be motivating other Japanese men in what is probably Japan's weakest track event. The other meet record came in the junior men's 100 m B-final , where Sekito Matsushita (Shizuoka H.S....

Only 7 Japanese athletes were in action across 3 events on the fifth day of the Tokyo World Championships . In the men's javelin throw qualification round, all 3 on the squad, Yuta Sakiyama , Roderick Genki Dean and Gen Naganuma , failed to make it to the final. Sakiyama was the best of them at 77.61 m for 15th in group A, Dean throwing 77.01 m for 16th in the same group and Naganuma 74.70 m for 17th in group B, putting him at 36th out of 37 competitors overall. Japan's hopes now rest on the women's javelin team. There was better luck in the women's 200 m heats, where Abigail Fuuka Ido , running on a host country slot, unexpectedly qualified for the semifinals with a 22.98 (+0.0) for 5th in Heat 5. That was enough to give her a time qualifying spot, and not the last one. Towa Uzawa came in ranked much higher in the men's 200 m field than Ido was in the women's, and he matched her performance in the heats with a 20.39 (+0.0) for 3rd in Heat 6 to move on to the ...

It's a pretty light day of competition for Japan on day 5 of its home soil World Athletics Championships , with only 7 people in action. 19:10 / 20:45 - Men's Javelin Throw Qualification Yuta Sakiyama (Ehime T&F Assoc.) - 87.16 m -  1st, Nationals Roderick Genki Dean (Mizuno) - 84.66 m -  2nd, Nationals Gen Naganuma (Suzuki) - 80.58 m -  3rd, Nationals Prognosis : Sakiyama and Dean are high enough up the rankings that both should make the final. Naganuma just squeezed onto the team thanks to roll-downs and will likely not advance. 19:30 - Women's 200 m Heats Abigail Fuuka Ido (Toho Ginko) - 22.79 (+1.0) -  1st, Nationals Prognosis : The new NR holder, Ido was an addition to the team thanks to Japan's host country slots. Her NR of 22.79 is far from the slowest season best in the field, but it would take some really good luck for her to advance. 20:15 - Men's 200 m Heats Towa Uzawa (JAL) - 20.11 (+0.9) -  1st, Nationals Soshi Mizukubo (Miyazaki T&F Assoc.)...

With less than 3 weeks to go until the Aug. 24 deadline to qualify for September's Tokyo World Championships let's take a look at what kind of team Japan might have. In terms of potential medalists there are 6 solid candidates, all the usual suspects. World and Olympic champion Haruka Kitaguchi leads the women's javelin throw. Ranked 5th, Nanako Fujii has an outside chance in the women's 20 km race walk. On the men's side, Ryuji Miura looks to be a contender in the 3000 mSC where he's ranked 3rd. Toshikazu Yamanishi and Satoshi Maruo are ranked 1-2 in the 20 km race walk, with Masatora Kawano at 3rd in the 35 km race walk. After that it's the always-strong men's 4x100 m, ranked 2nd, although the big question is who is going to be on the team. In the marathon, you want to feel like Fukuoka CR breaker Yuya Yoshida has a chance. The women's javelin, marathon and race walks look like the only events where Japan is likely to field full squads of 3...

The Asian Athletics Championships wrapped up Saturday in Gumi, South Korea with a string of record-setting performances. At the top of the list was the men's 200 m final , where Towa Uzawa ran a championships record and PB 20.21 (+0.8) to win gold, putting him at all-time Japanese #4 and all-time Asian #6. Saudi Abdul Abdu I Atafi and India's Animesh Kujur took silver and bronze in 20.31 and 20.32, with veteran Shota Iizuka 4th in a season best 20.66 that put him one step closer to a 14-straight year under 20.50. NR holder Rin Kubo turned in one of the fastest performances of her career so far in the women's 800 m final , just losing out to China's Wu Hongjiao . Wu delivered a meet record 2:00.08 for gold, Kubo just behind her in 2:00.42 for silver and India's Pooja Pooja a few strides back in 2:01.89 for bronze. Ayano Shiomi was 5th in 2:03.59. Yuta Sakiyama came up with a PB 83.75 m throw on his final attempt in the men's javelin , good enough for all-...

An update on standings for Japan's potential team at this summer's Paris Olympic Games. Final team nomination in most cases depends on a top 3 finish at the National Track and Field Championships, but as of this writing events where Japan could or will field three athletes having cleared the Olympic standard are the men's 110 mH, men's 400 mH, men's 20 kmRW and women's marathon. Other events that will or are likely to have a complete squad of three athletes include the men's 100 m, men's 200 m, men's 400 m, men's high jump, men's marathon, women's 5000 m, women's 10000 m, women's javelin throw, and women's 20 kmRW. Main changes from last week: Koki Ueyama moved up to 36th of 48 in the men's 200 m quota, passing Shota Iizuka for #2 Japanese man. Yuta Sakiyama was 2nd in the men's javelin throw at the Josef Odlozil Memorial in Prague and broke into the Paris quota at 32nd of 32. Misaki Morota was 2nd in the women...